


Six Feet of Space and Nothing But Time

by ArsenicSnap (HarperZale)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, i guess, is there a word for love that comes after growing up together, later on anyway, or during it or whatever, there should really be a word for that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 09:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarperZale/pseuds/ArsenicSnap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You move into the house at four.<br/>You discover The Window at seven.<br/>You get new neighbors at nine.</p><p>These events will turn out to be some of the most life-altering ones you will ever experience.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://inkspots123.tumblr.com/post/28310739350/doctor-john-the-cosmic-life-i-bet-that-if">Inspired by this Tumblr post.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Four, Seven.

You move into the house at four.

Clutching at the limp, worn arm of the puppet companion you've had ever since you could remember, you let the burly men cart boxes back and forth between the truck and the house and examine it from the outside.

Flaking white, peeling paint. There's a thin layer of grime on the windows, the brown wood of the steps rotted and green. Maybe if you were older you would feel more suspicious of the safety hazards involved with living in such a run-down place, but when you're four, your mind is more occupied on wondering when snacktime will be. It's an hour later than you're used to having it, what, with all the commotion taking up all of your brother's time, and you really want that little plastic cup of SpaghettiO's right now.

You crane your head back to where the roof meets the sky, two stories above. The house is squished amongst others similar to it, much like a bunch of vienna sausages in a tin can. The houses surrounding the one in front of you ( _your_ house, now, you think) barely leave a strip of alleyway between them.

You're not sure what you think of this place.

You hear your brother calling for you from inside.

Obeying, you squeeze the puppet closer to your chest, the head of it bumping up against shades that are just slightly too big for your head, and toddle warily past the men moving back and forth with the various furniture items.

  


This is where you will spend the next twelve years of your life.

  


\---

  


You're seven when you discover the window.

Not just any window in your house, (there are quite a few of them) but The Window.

From the inside, there's nothing particularly special about The Window. It's just as dusty as any other, and faces the house beside yours, a scarce few feet of space separating them.

You open The Window and stick your head out, just to get a fresh wiff of some of the humid atmosphere. It's beginning to smell a lot like musty old socks inside. Bro really needs to do the laundry.

Just as you're about to pull your head back in, however, you notice the ledge under it. Your seven-year-old brain has no official term for it, but it's the slightly slanted shingled overhang that covers the top of one of the other windows in the house. 

The perfect size for sitting on.

With a first glance behind you to make sure your brother isn't lurking nearby-- he does that more and more often these days-- you carefully clamber out and sit down, legs dangling limply over the edge.

Straight across from you-- so close that you might be able to reach out and touch it, if not for the fact that you're only seven and your arms are mere stubs-- you can see in through the house adjacent to yours. 

It's dark inside, and you don't see any furniture. Fairly irrelevant to your interests. No one lives there. Not yet, anyway. All the better for you.

You sit there for a while, the wind ruffling the hair on the back of your neck (your brother's been making noise about giving you a proper haircut for long time now, and yet he hasn't gotten around to it) while you listen to the quiet noise of the people living their lives around you.

Eventually, you deem you've been out long enough, and so you carefully stand back up and slide the window open. You'd hate for your Bro to notice you're gone and forbid you from coming out this way ever again.

This is going to be your new secret hideaway, you think. 

No one else will ever know.

  


\---

  


You're nine when neighbors move into the house next to yours.

  



	2. Fourteen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're fourteen by the time you actually visit one another's house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, readers! I'm going to explain a few things about this work so it makes more sense. You should probably read this if you want to avoid confusion.
> 
> Rather than having a boring old plotline where the events progress in a linear fashion, I'm switching it up and butchering these chapters to pieces. Mainly as an experiment, to see how the storytelling affects the actual story (we've all read Homestuck, and you know how often the way the information is presented changes).
> 
> Anyhow, I'm not doing anything fancy but reordering the chapters. You see, there will be nine main chapters, as well as possibly an epilogue. Likewise, this story will contain nine years of Dave's life (excepting the very first chapter, in which he's a little kid).
> 
> The years of his life are out of order, however, hence the skip from age seven to age fourteen in this chapter. In the end, all of the years will be there, so if you're not on board with the idea of skipping around, then maybe you should come back once this is finished and read the chapters in order. It should work either way! The chapter titles are all named after what year of Dave's life it's about.
> 
> I believe that's enough rambling explanation. On with the chapter!

You're fourteen by the time you actually visit one another's house.

She insists you come to hers, much to your relief. Though you know Jade isn't the type to judge, the idea of Bro's quirky mannerisms potentially creeping her out makes you uneasy.

As soon as you walk in the door, however, you realize that Jade's grandpa has quite a few quirks up his own sleeve.

"Are those... car air fresheners?" You reach up to touch one, and she smacks your hand away.

"Rude, Dave! Don't you know it's impolite to poke around in someone's home without permission?"

"My bad," you say, holding your hands up in a purposefully extravagant sign of resignation.

The must be hundreds of them; green air fresheners in the shape of trees, dangling from various lengths of string taped to the ceiling. An entire forest of piney delight. The stench is almost overpowering and you resist the urge to scrunch up your nose, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. This was actually really weird, even by your standards, and you lived with _Bro_.

"It covers the smell of the stuff he drags in sometimes," Jade explains, leading you deeper into the house. 

You can't contain your curiosity as you glance around, trying to absorb every detail. The overall messy atmosphere, things like overgrown potted plants entangling one another on the ground, multiple blue posters of what appear to be women dotted across the walls.

"Hey, Grandpa, he's here!" She shouts, leading you into her bedroom. 

More details to be gandered upon. She's got clothes draped all over the place, on top of her unmade bed, all over the floor, on the backs of chairs. Stuffed squid-like plushes peek out here and there from the clutter. At least your brother wasn't alone in the obsessive plush collecting department-- there had to be at least twenty. 

"Maybe I should've cleaned up some," she admits, sheepishly, kicking aside a _oh god was that a human skull what the fuck._

Your surprise must've shown on your face-- a rare occurrence-- because she laughs.

"It's my Grandpa's. Don't worry, he's not an axe murder or anything, I think he gets them from the archaelogical digs he goes on."

"Your Grandpa's an archaeologist?" This is the first time she's ever mentioned it.

"Hm... now that I think of it, maybe he just buys them off of eBay." She shrugs, as if it couldn't make much of a difference to her. "I just wish he'd stop leaving his crap all around my room. He's not even allowed in here, I don't know how he does it."

Your initial horror turns into fascination as you bend down and scoop up the little skull. It may not be the prized dead scorpion you keep in a jar on a shelf in your room, but it's still pretty interesting. You turn it over in your hands.

A sudden voice from behind startles you so hard you almost shit your pants.

"Ahoy there sonny! Looks like you've got your paws on something that doesn't belong to you."

You whirl around so fast, you almost drop the skull, but he manages to catch it. His reflexes a lot quicker than you'd expect of someone his age.

"Dave, meet my grandpa." Jade's exasperated tone goes well with the roll of her eyes.

"I'm Dave," you repeat a little stupidly, eyeing the apparation of a man from behind your shades.

He reaches out and clasps your hand before you can subtly move it away, giving it a firm shake.

"It's lovely finally meeting you, Dave. Jade here has spun me all sorts of yarn about how swell of a fella you are."

"Uh, you too, Mr. Harley."

"Oh please, don't sound so dreadfully formal!" He laughs and releases your hand. You exchange a look with Jade. "You can call me Grandpa too."

"Grandpa, don't you have some guns to clean?" Jade clears her throat, tone having an obvious edge to it.

"Oh yes, as a matter of fact. Thank you for reminding me. Oh! I almost forgot something else, I whipped you two up a nice pumpkin pie. Hold on a tic while I go get it," he says, then pauses, the ends of his mustache almost seeming to curl up into a question mark of thought. 

"And no funny business with my Jade, Dave you hear me? I've got my eyes on you."

Before Jade's displeasured squeal can leave her throat, he's already gone.

You have no idea what to think of Jade's Grandpa.

You do know, however, that she's looking at you rather strangely now, face flushed with embarrassment. You know that feeling. Whenever-- _if_ ever-- she meets Bro, you're sure the situation will be the exact same.

"Funny business, pfft. He's such an old coot."

"He's not that bad. You haven't even been in my house yet."

She sits down on the edge of her bed, and you follow her after standing there awkwardly for a moment or two.

"What kind of funny business can two fourteen-year-olds get up to, anyway?" she laughs, tracing patterns on the blanket under you. If you didn't know any better, you might think she was nervous.

You lean in and kiss her.

You don't even know why.

You do know, however, that her slightly parted mouth had looked awfully appealing right at that moment, and you also know that as soon as your lips meet that it feels _right_. Your heart flutters for a second, as if subdued by this sudden turn of events, then it feels like it's exploding with the ache of want that you didn't even know you had.

In movies, the protagonist's first kiss is always glamorized, turned into a heated, romantic moment where sparks fly and the audience undoubtedly knows that the girl has fallen for the guy.  
This is not what happens in reality, you soon realize.

Her teeth clacks painfully against yours several times and your tongues don't know what to do and your glasses keep banging against each other's. You finally break apart, huffing for breath, since you'd both forgotten that you could still breathe from your nose.

"Wow," she says.

"Wow," you say.

Expectant awkwardness follows.

"So..."

"So?"

You wipe your mouth and straighten your shades a little, more to give your hands something to do than anything else. They suddenly feel very heavy and noticeable against your lap.

"Does this mean we're a thing now?"

"A thing?"

"Like, a romantic thing."

She chews on her bottom lip, considering.

"I don't know."

"Maybe we should try again?"

you offer casually, trying to make it seem like it was no big deal.

You're about to, but then you hear the footsteps of her Grandpa clomping down the hall, and you both fling yourselves away from one another as if you had been caught completely naked.

"Hey, sorry about that..." He sticks his head in the doorway and pauses. "You two look awfully fishy. What's going on in here?"

He eyes the both of you suspiciously. Deadpan as you are, the red isn't fading from your face, and Jade's as obvious as a dead crow lying in the middle of the pavement. 

"What, cat got your tongues?"

"Where's the pie, Grandpa?" Jade finally ventures. 

His intense scrutiny seems to shift a little, and he smiles.

"Okay, so here's the story. I went to retrieve it-- it took a lot of hard work and sweat to make, mind you, but I'm a darn skippy good cook when I decide to put in the effort-- but for some reason, I couldn't find it anywhere. It's almost like the blasted thing never existed at all..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love referencing things in canon
> 
> also it should be mentioned that any and all comments are greatly appreciated!! they make me feel like i'm actually accomplishing something with this whole writing shebang, and i reply to every one of them. :V

**Author's Note:**

> god bless my soul what am i trying to do juggling two series at once


End file.
